It is already known that when a microbe of the genus Arthrobacter, Corynebacterium, Nocardia or Mycobacterium, capable of utilizing a sugar, such as glucose, fructose, sucrose or trehalose, to produce a lipid containing any of these sugars is cultured in a medium whose main carbon source is any of these sugars under aerobic conditions, it accumulates the glycolipid in bacterial cells or in the medium, and the mycolic acid ester of glucose, fructose, sucrose or trehalose can be obtained by recovering the accumulated glycolipid [Japanese Published and Unexamined Patent Application No. 48186/1975, Japanese Published and Unexamined Patent Application No. 3514/1978, Japanese Published and Unexamined Patent Application No. 89632/1984 and the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 52, 95-101 (1974)].
It is also known that when a microbe capable of utilizing hydrocarbons is cultured in a medium whose carbon sources are various n-paraffins, trehalose lipid can be obtained. (Japanese Published and Examined Patent Application No. 7349/1972).
However, these glycolipids are mono- or dimycolic acid esters; when the sugar is glucose, for example, the glycolipid is the mycolic acid ester thereof at C(6-position)-OH; when the sugar is fructose, the glycolipid is the mycolic acid ester thereof at C(1-position)-OH or C(6-position)-OH, or both. In addition, even in case the sugar is the disaccharide, sucrose or trehalose, only the monomycolic acid ester thereof at C(6-position)-OH and the dimycolic acid ester thereof at C(6-position)-OH and C(6'-position)-OH are known